Why a Small Italian Town Is Erecting a Marble Statue of Donald Trump

A small town in Italy’s Lucca province is spending $85,000 on a marble statue of Donald Trump.

Vagli di Sotto is a mountain town that is trying to lure visitors to its marble sculpture park by installing culturally relevant figures.

"I'm not going to enter in discussion over whether his actions are right or wrong," the town’s mayor, Mario Puglia, told The Local Italy. "But at the moment Trump is the only politician who is following through on his promises, doing what he said on the campaign trail."

While the minds behind the park may have refused to say how Donald Trump will be portrayed, it’s important to know that the sculpture park is named the “Park of Honor and Dishonor.”

On which side the statue will be may just depend on your point of view.

Among the other figures featured in the park are a French police dog who was killed in a raid that Paris terrorist attacks in 2015 and Francesco Schettino, the captain onboard the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster in 2012.

Last year, the park commissioned a statue of David Bowie that will appear in the park within the coming days.

The town’s mayor is hoping that the new marble statues will lure American tourists over to the small town. Although Vagli di Sotto only has a population of 1,000 people, last year almost 250,000 tourists came through.

Besides the sculpture park, the town also is famous for the submerged village in its lake. Fabbriche di Careggine was flooded in the 1940s to make way for a hydroelectric dam, but it becomes visible every summer when the lake dries out.